telling the story with my whole heart

Prayers, pleasing, and protecting

This is the part I don’t want you to see. It would be so much easier to stay invisible, and not set obscure questions I ponder sometimes out there in the breezy air to flutter around . . .

It’s my fault. I’m sorry.

These phrases course through my blood like cancer cells.
I feel like they’ve always been there.
That I was born with them inside me: it’s my fault. I’m sorry.

As an intuitive person, one with more empathy than any one person should have, I’m always sensing, always alert to how others are in a situation and to the unspoken vibration of moments. “It’s my fault/I’m sorry” is my go-to emotional response, when a moment feels charged, uneasy, subtly dangerous.

My stomach muscles tighten, and my mind scurries across the past several minutes, back and forth, scanning, scanning: Why is she not smiling? Why is he not talking? What did I do wrong? Why is he yelling? Why is he in that room with the door closed? What did I do wrong?

I remember my 3rd grade teacher once stopped in the middle of yelling at some other student and looked straight at me: “Am I yelling at you, Colleen? No, I’m not yelling at you. You didn’t do anything wrong.” To her, I must have looked slapped in the face or terrified or something, I don’t know, but she could visually see I was reacting to her anger, even though it wasn’t directed at me.

So I know these things about myself now. I spend time consciously reeling back this initial and irrational response I feel I was born with.

It takes energy and focus, but I’m doing it.

One day at the page, I began to reflect about this and a series of questions unfurled from my pen . .

Do you think an unborn baby can sense its unwed mother’s secret thoughts and prayers? Her heartbreak, her shame her sadness? (Go away, go away, dear God, make this go away . . . )

And then, do you think it’s possible for this same unborn baby to grow up into a girl and then into a woman, yearning to be seen but never to be too much of a bother? To feel, at her core, that she shouldn’t take up too much space, be too big. And that she must please and protect – like some unspoken penance for causing this shame and suffering, this derailment of her mother’s then-intended life?

How is it possible to discern the beginning? Where is it? When does one’s story start?

***

Postscript: I’m happy to take the blame for my parents’ marriage. In October 2016, they will celebrate 50 years together.

Reflection by Colleen Nolan Armstrong, drafted in June 2012 and completed today. #outofthebox

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5 thoughts on “Prayers, pleasing, and protecting”

You remind me of something a (woman) actor wrote after performing in our all-female “Tempest.” “It was challenging to learn how to move like a man, and also freeing. I worried less about sitting politely, about smiling pleasantly, about being careful not to take up too much space in the world.” Hats off to you for claiming your space.

“Being careful not to take up too much space in the world” – yes! Thank you for reading this piece and responding and being there in general, as a role model. . . .I wasn’t happy with this piece and almost grabbed it down off the blog. (Not to mention pull all my writing out of my desk and toss it into some sacrificial fire! Crazy stuff) But chose to sit with those uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability in setting my individual voice into the world, imperfectly. So grateful for you.